Early voting began on Monday in Harris County with the state's voter ID law recently reinstated by a federal appeals court. The ruling handed down by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals allows the law to be used in the Nov. 4 election, despite a lower judge's ruling that the law is unconstitutional.
The Texas law requires registered voters to show one of seven kinds of photo identification to cast a ballot. The U.S. Justice Department says more than 600,000 of those voters, mostly black and Hispanics, lack eligible identification. The Justice Department condemns the state voter ID law as Texas' latest means of suppressing minority voter turnout.
On this edition of Houston Matters, we discuss where the voter ID law stands now, and where it could be headed next.
Also on election day, voters in the north Texas town of Denton will cast ballots on a referendum that would ban hydraulic fracturing — or fracking. Houston Public Media’s Dave Fehling joins us to discuss whether the measure might pass or fail and to explain the arguments of those for and against the measure.
Also, former NPR reporter Barbara Bradley-Hagerty talks about the challenges of covering religion in America and book, Fingerprints of God: In Search of the Science of Spirituality.
And we hear from Rick Lowe, founder of Project Row Houses, an art and affordable housing project in Houston’s Third Ward. Lowe was named a MacArthur Fellow last month.
